Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2025
October 30, 2025
The President. Okay. Hello, everybody.
Q. Hello, Mr. President.
The President. I thought it was an amazing meeting.
He's a great leader—great leader of a very powerful, a very strong country, China. And we—what can I say? We have—it was an outstanding group of decisions, I think, that was made. A lot of decisions were made too. There wasn't too much left out there. And we've come to conclusion on many very important points, and we'll be handing that to you in a little while. But you know, we're having—because there was a lot of different things, many of them very important.
We're in agreement on so many elements. Large amounts—tremendous amounts of the soybeans and other farm products are going to be purchased immediately, starting immediately. If you noticed, President Xi authorized yesterday for China to start—did you know that, right?—China to start buying in very large quantities of soybeans and other things, which I appreciated.
That was a very nice gesture. And many other things like that.
We—on fentanyl, we agreed that he was going to work very hard to stop the flow. You know, it's a very complex subject, because it's used for lots of different reasons, including anesthetics and things. But he's going to work very hard on it, precursors. And I think you're going to see some real action taken.
I've agreed—as you know, I put a 20-percent tariff on China because of the fentanyl coming in, which is—it's a big tariff. And based on his statements today, I reduced it by 10 percent. So it's 10 percent instead of 20 percent, effective immediately. I believe he's going to work very hard to stop the death that's coming in. But again, it's complex because of what fentanyl is, what the precursors do. So I think you're going to see a big difference.
We have—we've had discussions on many of the elements that you're talking about all the time. You're asking me questions, and most of those things were, I think, agreed to, for the most part. I think we agreed to almost—almost everything in a very acceptable form. I wouldn't say everything was discussed, because there were things that probably, in retrospect, we could have discussed that we didn't—for some reason—didn't come up. But if you have any questions, let me know.
Go ahead.
China-U.S. Trade
Q. What about chips, sir? Did he agree—did you agree to sell any more—[inaudible]?
The President. We did discuss chips. We did discuss chips. And he's going to be—they're going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips. Look, we make great chips. Nvidia is the leader. And I'll be speaking to Jensen, from Nvidia. But they're going to be discussing that with Nvidia to see whether or not they can do—I said, "That's really between you and Nvidia." But we're sort of the arbitrator or the referee.
[At this point, Air Force One experienced turbulence.]
It's a little rough up here. These skies—the skies are a little rough.
Semiconductor Manufacturing
Q. And just to clarify, sir, that is the downgraded Blackwell chips? You would authorize those to be exported?
The President. No, no, not the Blackwell. We're not talking about the Blackwell. That just came out yesterday. But a lot of chips. You know, a lot of the chips. And that's good for us.
Q. How soon do you think you'd be able to sign an actual——
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson L. Greer. [Inaudible]
The President. Yes, please. Come on. You know what you do? Yes, come on. Stand right over here.
Ambassador Greer. Let me just—yes. Hey, everybody. Thanks. I'll just make a point on the chips. As the President was saying, there's so many chips we already send to China—a lot of advanced chips, et cetera. And as he said, you know, Nvidia will talk to China and see what's possible. The Blackwell chips, of course, weren't discussed.
We focused on export controls of China on rare earth, and they're going to keep those flowing, which is quite important.
The President. Yes.
China-U.S. Trade/Critical Minerals
Q. What are the major stumbling blocks that are left now to work through? And how soon do you think you could sign a trade deal with China?
The President. Well, I think pretty soon. We have not too many major stumbling blocks. We were—we have a deal. Now, every year we'll renegotiate the deal, but I think the deal will go on for a long time, long beyond the year. We'll negotiate at the end of the year.
But all of the rare earth has been settled——
Ambassador Greer. That's right.
The President. ——and that's for the world. I mean, you know, worldwide. This—I guess you could really say this was a worldwide situation, not just a U.S. situation.
So we continue to produce the rare earths and buy the rare earths and everything else, you know, when you see from other countries. But China is—that whole situation, that roadblock is gone now. There won't—there's no roadblock at all on rare earth. That will, hopefully, disappear from our vocabulary for a little while.
Q. And what will——
Rare Earth Minerals
Q. So, is that the—is that a 1-year pause on the policy they announced?
The President. It's a 1-year—it's a 1-year agreement, and we'll extend it after a year, you know, like—like we do. It's a 1-year deal that will, I think, be very routinely extended as time goes by.
Ambassador Greer. To be totally clear, we're not—they're not going to impose the rare earth controls that they proposed. President Trump and President Xi came to an understanding on that point.
China-U.S. Trade
Q. What will your new tariff rate on China's goods be once you sign the deal?
The President. It's the same. Other than what we—there's—the tariffs remain exactly the same.
Q. Fifty-five percent?
The President. It's about—no. It's—it was 57. Now it's 47, because we reduced it by the fentanyl, because I believe they are really taking strong action. We've already seen the action on fentanyl, and they're taking very strong action. So we reduced to 10 percent.
Tariff Implementation Timeline
Q. So that November date is gone when it was going to go up again?
The President. Yes. Yes.
Q. Okay.
Fentanyl/Tariffs
Ambassador Greer. That's right. On fentanyl, they've agreed there are a variety of precursors. You may recall that actual fentanyl was scheduled by China in the President's first term successfully. There are certain precursors where they take whatever actions they need to control that. If they can control rare earths, we know they can control the precursors. And President Xi, I think, was very strong in saying he was going to enforce those laws internally. And of course, we'll watch that, and we'll work with them.
The President. He's going to be very strong in enforcing the fentanyl, everything having to do with fentanyl and regulations internally, including taking very strong measures against those that don't obey.
Ambassador Greer. And a variety of other tariffs still remain. Section 301 tariffs from the original—[inaudible]—section 232 tariffs. Some of these tariffs are, as the President mentioned, around 40 percent. For some individual products, it may go up to 100 percent. But as a general matter, it's about 45, 47 percent.
Possible Future Meetings With President Xi Jinping of China
Q. So, sir, it sounds like you might be going to China, then, after the successful meeting.
The President. Yes, that's another thing we agreed. I'll be going to China in April, and he'll be coming here sometime after that, whether it's in Florida, Palm Beach, or Washington, DC.
U.S. Shipbuilding Capacity
Q. Did you agree to anything on the shipping fees—the 301 shipping investigation? The fees on China.
The President. Well, that's been—that's been——Ambassador Greer. So we're going to postpone that——The President. ——postponed.
Ambassador Greer. ——while we negotiate with them about that issue. We're trying to rebuild shipbuilding. The Koreans just agreed to invest $150 billion in shipbuilding. So we think we have a good path forward.
The President. But that's no longer an issue.
Ukraine/Russia
Q. Did the war in Ukraine or Taiwan come up?
The President. Yes, we did. We discussed that. And we discussed, basically——[Air Force One experienced turbulence.]
These are rough winds in Asia. I must tell you, this is a rough flight. We could have waited an hour, maybe. These are a little tough—these are tough conditions for interviews. You know, they're going to be watching Trump. They're going to say: "He didn't look too good. He's got the shakes." I don't have the shakes, but people are going to think I do.
Q. So Ukraine—it came up?
The President. Yes, it did come up. Ukraine came up very strongly. We talked about it for a long time. And we're both going to work together to see if we can get something done. We agree that the sides are, you know, locked in, they're fighting, and sometimes you have to let them fight, I guess. Crazy. But he's going to help us, and we're going to work together on Ukraine.
China/Russian Oil and Gas Supplies/Ukraine/U.S. Security Assistance
Q. And Russian oil——
The President. There's not a lot more we can do. The oil—you know, he's been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a big part of China. And you know, I can say India has been very good on that front. But we—didn't really discuss the oil. We discussed working together to see if we could get that war finished.
You know, it doesn't affect China. It doesn't affect us. And I'd like to see it done on the basis—I don't like to see 6-, 7-, 8,000 young people, mostly young people—for the most part, soldiers—be killed.
It's not costing us anything. In fact, we make money. And I don't even want to talk about making money. I don't care about making money in that case. But you know, we send weapons to NATO. They buy full price. They buy the weapons. They give them to whoever, but I think they give them probably to Ukraine for the most part.
Yes, we discussed it. We discussed something. We're going to work together to try and get the war with Russia and Ukraine solved.
Taiwan Political Status
Q. What about the Taiwan issue, sir?
The President. It never came up. Taiwan never came up. It was not discussed, actually.
The President's Meeting With President Xi Jinping of China
Q. What else didn't come up that you thought might come up? You had mentioned you didn't get to everything.
The President. I don't know. It just—you know, I mean, we had a long meeting, as you know, but a lot of things we discussed in great detail. A lot of things we brought to finalization. A lot of finalization.
I thought it was a great meeting. I think it was a very friendly meeting. It was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries, and that's the way we should get along with a large, powerful country.
U.S. Resumption of Nuclear Testing
Q. Why did you write Truth Social about nuclear testing?
The President. About what?
Q. About resuming nuclear testing. What prompted you to do that right before the meeting?
The President. Well, it had nothing to do with them. It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don't do testing. You know, we've halted it years—many years ago. But with others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that we do also.
Timeline for Nuclear Testing
Q. Any details around the testing, sir, like where, when?
The President. We will be—it will be announced. You know, we have test sites. It will be announced.
U.S. Cease-Fire Agreement Between Hamas and Israel
Q. Did Israel give you a heads-up before they bombed Gaza? And is it still a ceasefire if they're——
The President. Yes, it's a cease-fire. It is. No, they had a sniper, and one of their soldiers were killed, and they did retribution. So we'll see. But yes, it is a cease-fire. It's all—it's back to ceasefire.
Romania
Q. What's the thinking behind reducing troops in Romania—the drawdown of U.S. troops in Romania?
The President. You'd have to ask—I mean, I can tell you about it, but it's not very significant. It's not a—not a big deal.
China-U.S. Relations/Domestic Manufacturing Investment
Q. On nuclear weapons, sir, which countries do you have in mind when you say you want to send a signal?
[Air Force One experienced turbulence.]
The President. Wow. What a rough ride this is. This is—the interviews are tough enough without—[laughter]—you know, without your life being threatened. You guys okay?
Q. Yes, sir. Thank you.
The President. That camera guy is very steady. We're going to look real bad today on television, I'll tell you.
I think that, you know, it's pretty much—I think we've discussed mostly what we said. Pretty comprehensive. We're going to issue a statement on some of the details.
But overall, I guess on the scale of from 0 to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12.
Q. Wow.
The President. Okay? I think it was a 12. I think, very importantly, you know, just the whole relationship is very, very important. And I think it was really good.
Ambassador Greer. Well, and especially coming on the heels of a successful trip. We were in Malaysia. You signed a peace deal for Cambodia and Thailand. Critical mineral deals with all our allies.
The President. So many successful meetings.
Ambassador Greer. [Inaudible]—right? The whole way.
The President. And so many meetings great for our country with literally hundreds of billions—trillions of dollars have come into our country over the last 4 days, represented by this meeting. But trillions of dollars, where Toyota is going to build plants—10 billion dollars' worth of plants. And you know, I could go over so many different companies coming in. They're pouring money into the United States.
So, beyond even this meeting, this was an unbelievable trip. And I hope you're glad you were a part of it. It was big. Every country. Japan. I mean, you look at South Korea, Japan, and so many other countries that we met there. They're investing tremendous amounts of money in the United States—like, money that we've never seen before.
China/Investment and Business Ventures in the U.S.
Q. Did you discuss investments from China in the U.S., additional investments? Anything like that?
The President. Well, they have investments, and they will invest. And China—you know, I think they feel very strongly. They congratulated me on the tremendous success that we've had, because there's never been a country that has had so much money come into it for purposes of investment—for building, for auto plants, for AI, et cetera. So he was very strong on congratulating me for that.
Q. But he didn't commit to any additional investment or outflow?
The President. We didn't really discuss it. But he would——
State Affairs Commission President Kim Jong Un of North Korea
Q. Sir, did you ever get through to Kim Jong Un about setting up a meeting? Does he have a—[inaudible]?
The President. We never were able to talk because we—look, I was so busy. And really, this is why we came. I think it would have been maybe disrespectful to the importance of this meeting if we did that.
So I'd come back. With respect to Kim Jong Un, I'd come back. It was——
Q. What do you want to talk about with him?
The President. I had a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. I think if I didn't get elected, you would have had—if Hillary Clinton came in at the time, who he doesn't like—he doesn't like too many people other than me, if you want to know the truth—I think you would have had a big war. Could have been a very bad war, too.
Nuclear Testing/Global Nuclear Disarmament Efforts
Q. Sir, on the nuclear announcement. Just one more on the nuclear announcement. Do you worry that we're entering a more risky environment when it comes to nuclear issues?
The President. No, I don't think so. I think we have it pretty well locked up. But we—you know, we have more than anybody. But I see them testing, and I say, "Well, if they're going to test, I guess we have to test."
I'd like to see a denuclearization, because we have so many, and Russia has some. Russia is second, and China is third, and China will catch up within 4 or 5 years. I think de-escalation would be—they would call it denuclearization—would be a tremendous thing. And it's
something—we are actually talking to Russia about that, and China would be added to that if we do something.
Thank you all. It was a great success. It was a great honor. I mean, he's a tremendous leader of a very powerful country, and I give great respect to him. And we appreciate the fact that he came for this meeting.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada
Q. Anything on Canada? Anything on Canada?
The President. No. We had a very nice conversation with him last night, though. We really
did.
NOTE: The President spoke at 1:34 p.m. in the press cabin. In his remarks, he referred to Jensen Huang, founder, president, and chief executive officer, NVIDIA Corp.; and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her capacity as the 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee. The transcript was released by the Office of Communications on November 3.
Categories: Interviews With the News Media : Exchanges with reporters, Air Force One. Locations: Air Force One.
Names: Carney, Mark; Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Greer, Jamieson L.; Huang, Jensen; Kim Jong Un; Xi Jinping.
Subjects: Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies; Canada, Prime Minister; China, investment and business ventures in U.S.; China, President; China, relations with U.S.; China, synthetic opioid supply chain; China, trade with Russia; China, trade with U.S.; Critical minerals, supply chain improvements; Gaza, conflict with Israel; India, trade with Russia; Israel, military operations in Gaza; Manufacturing industry, domestic investment; News media, Presidential interviews; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; North Korea, President of the State Affairs Commission; Nuclear disarmament, international efforts; Nuclear testing, U.S. resumption; Opioid epidemic, efforts to combat; Romania, security cooperation with U.S.; Russia, conflict in Ukraine; Russia, oil supply and refining; Semiconductor manufacturing; Shipbuilding, domestic expansion efforts; Taiwan, political status with respect to China; Tariffs; U.S. Trade Representative; Ukraine, Russian invasion and airstrikes.
DCPD Number: DCPD202501078.